to be decided Raveneye
by Raveneye
Summary: Yeah Original character fic. Not Mary Sue, I promise. if you feel it is, shoot me. Yeah the character and I have the same name, so sue me. Original character, nothing special. Just Nausicaa and her story
1. The Logos

I ran across Rashel two months later, on one of my late night shifts. It was late. The Logos was parked in an obscure corner   
  
for fear of sentinel attack. Inside the air held the intensity of a freezer, but while a freezer circulated white scarves of   
  
coldness, on the Logos it just sat, a solemn vacuum. I was wearing three sweaters and drinking what Ghost called the Logos   
  
Sports Mix, a brew of moonshine liqueur and god knows what, the equivalent of coffee in the Matrix. It wasn't as strong as   
  
Dozer's, but still seared your throat and threw fumes up your nose, hit your brain like a dash of ice-cold water. I couldn't   
  
take it two months ago. Now, I drank it like it was water, wrapped up in three hand me down sweaters from various members of   
  
the crew, text messaging Trinity, asking her how life was on the Neb. I wasn't paying much attention until my trace program   
  
began furiously blinking on my taskbar. I typed brb and clicked to see what my program had found me.   
  
Guilty of nearly every computer crime in the state of California. Most notably the notorious Fukai virus that infected more   
  
than 50 thousand computers across the country. 17, my age. Class of 2006. Madison High. William Watson the 3rd, the Matrix   
  
had given him, and I suppressed the urge to laugh out loud. And since I was particularly bored I ran my trace program further   
  
over him, found out he liked anime, Jennifer Lopez. His favorite foods were Chinese and Thai. He drank Heineken and was an   
  
expert in pool, poker and foosball. Boots were the shit. His penis measured five inches. I stopped my program immediately   
  
after that.  
  
In the morning I showed Niobe what I had found. She was impressed, but not impressed to the point of unplugging him   
  
immediately. Instead she assigned me the job of watching him. It never happened. Two days later a second version of the Fukai   
  
crashed Wall Street and Microsoft. Niobe didn't need anymore convincing.   
  
"This guy had potential," she told us at breakfast, "and since she was the one who found him, Nausicaa will do the   
  
recruiting."  
  
Everyone's sporks clunked into their bowls. I winced at the sound, the hollow, smarting thud of disbelief.  
  
"No way," said Sparks.  
  
"Too damn young," scowled Lock.  
  
"I haven't gone on a single recruiting, and I've been out longer than that dipshit," Bella didn't like the fact that I was   
  
stealing her thunder,  
  
Even Ghost was skeptical.  
  
"Are you sure? It's one thing to be able to delete a figment of the Matrix, another thing to get a coppertop to listen." His   
  
tone was calm, steady, like Morpheus, but not quite. Morpheus didn't need to ask anyone if they were sure.  
  
"Positive," said Niobe, laying a hand briefly on my shoulder. It was warm. Then she straightened, her five-foot frame   
  
commanding all authority.  
  
"And no questions asked."  
  
Trinity had told me about recruiting. All the stories and rumors. Contacting myths I needed to avoid. Always be sure of   
  
yourself. Once the captain gave the order, you had to contact right away. Never use phones or text messages until you were   
  
dead sure no agents were on your tail, and then again, always keep the messages brief, just enough to brain fuck the poor   
  
coppertop bad until you met. Different captains liked to use different spiels to lure the coppertop into. This and a lot more   
  
that I drilled into my head as I lowered myself into my chair. Now, I had to lift my hair before Sparks slid the plug in. It   
  
was a little past my shoulders now, it wouldn't be long before it went back to Rafaela length.   
  
Sparks jacked me into the reception hall of a deplicated, abandoned old hotel.  
  
"There's a laptop for you in room 88," he said once I had checked in.  
  
"Alright."  
  
I snapped my cell phone shut. Sparks' idea of a joke. 1988 was the year I was born in. A Dragon. Star sign: Leo.  
  
I started up the stairs, pleased to find that I made no sound as I jogged on the creaking, rickety steps. All those hours in   
  
the Construct had paid off. As I went I ran the procedure over in my head. Hack into his computer, type in a few messages to   
  
seriously brain fuck him and then hope to god Lock and Bella would do their hungry customer thing and lure him out of his   
  
apartment. As I reached room 88 I tried to think of what I would say to him. Trinity enjoyed using Alice in Wonderland. I   
  
preferred Wizard of Oz.   
  
Room 88 reminded me of the dorm I slept in on my 6th grade trip. Windowless, an unmade bed dusted with gray, the furniture   
  
covered in sheets. A silver gray laptop sat on the desk. I lifted the screen, switched it on, reached for my cell phone.  
  
"How is everything?" I asked Sparks as I waited for the laptop to boot up.  
  
"Coast is clear at your place. No sign of Agent movement anywhere near."  
  
"Good," The screen blinked on. I quickly typed my way online, "what about my target?"  
  
"Target arrived home at oh nine hundred hours. Had dinner with his parents, threw a fit about college majors. Now he's   
  
stormed up to his room and locked himself in."  
  
"Why the hell would he fight over something like college majors?" Hell, I wished my parents cared enough to think about my   
  
college majors. Rafaela would have, but she had died before it was time to think about it.  
  
"Search me," said Sparks, "either way he's in his room now. But he hasn't switched on his computer yet"  
  
Perfect.  
  
"Ok, thanks Sparks. Call you when I need you." I hung up, hurriedly typed into my laptop. My skills had since improved from   
  
the time I had deleted the figment of the Matrix. And with the added tricks Trinity had taught me hacking through Rashel's   
  
firewalls was like browsing the Internet. In less than two seconds I was through, was typing my first message.  
  
Things didn't go too well with the parents, huh?  
  
I waited for several more seconds, before a message flashed back to me.  
  
What the fuck? I smiled.  
  
Don't stress them out. Parents who care are hard to find these days. The message came after more seconds.  
  
Who the fuck are you?   
  
My smile widened.  
  
I, am larger than biology. I do not bleed. I am the virus, the broken strand of mutated gene. I, am the Lord Almighty.   
  
The answer came back immediately.  
  
That's bullshit.  
  
I grinned, waited a few seconds before typing the next message.  
  
What is the Matrix?  
  
I could almost see his face, his jaw slackening, his eyes widening, could almost hear the cogs turning in his brain. What the   
  
hell, he'd be thinking.  
  
What the hell?  
  
I nearly laughed out loud.  
  
The Matrix has you, Rashel.   
  
I waited again before typing another message.  
  
You are not in Kansas anymore... two seconds, Follow the yellow brick road.  
  
Then I signed off, took out my gun, blasted the laptop to smithereens. My hand didn't shake anymore. I didn't blink when the   
  
bullets came in contact with the digital plastic. I reached again for my cell phone.  
  
"Exit."  
  
"Good job," said Niobe when I opened my eyes. Ghost slid out my plug.  
  
I shrugged.  
  
"Just doing my job." I had long learned never to take in praise. Lock would scowl. Bella would threaten to beat me up later   
  
when we were alone.  
  
"How is he?" I asked, before Niobe could say more.  
  
"Come see the code for yourself. All I can say is, you brain fucked him big time."  
  
I went over and took a look. The strings of letters, number and kantaka characters were flying in rivers down the screen. I   
  
caught Yellow brick road, yellow brick road until it all but dominated the code. I allowed a smirk to creep onto my face.   
  
Sparks was right. I had brain fucked him big time.  
  
Later, when everyone had retired to the mess hall, Rashel began to calm, green glyphs in his code slowing to the steady pace   
  
of Matrix code, but he was still confused, I could still catch the what the fucks and yellow brick roads.   
  
He wasn't the only one who was thinking, I sat at the console, hands on my knees, chin on my fingers, pondering my next move.   
  
Behind, I heard a rattle on the ladder.  
  
"So what's your plan?" snapped Bella, her voice more biting than the air. I shrugged.  
  
"I wouldn't be asking that question if I were you," Sparks had come up the ladder, balancing on his head a tray with a bowl   
  
of slop and a tin of water. Sparks, an almost extinct species in his faith and loyalty. He set the tray on the operator's   
  
chair, leaned on the back and watched the code with me. I picked up my bowl, stirred my slop.   
  
"Oh, so she doesn't have a plan?" I knew what was going to follow, and my head hurt just thinking of it.   
  
"I never said that."  
  
"You never said she had one either."   
  
I kept on stirring my slop.  
  
"Nausicaa is smart. She'll think of something."  
  
"Nausea's a dumbass. I don't know why the hell Niobe's giving this Rashel dude to her and not me. Maybe because he's a   
  
dumbass like her as well."  
  
I let my spork spin to a stop in my bowl, dropped it on to my tray, the white substance spilled onto the sheet of scrap   
  
metal. I left the core, shimmied down the ladder and back into my room, where I reached underneath my cot, pulled out the   
  
volume I had picked up in Zion. I held it to my chest, buried my nose in the yellow pages, fragile as skin. Dipshit, Dumbass.   
  
Was that what Bella thought of me? It wasn't that I didn't understand. I understood it perfectly. It was hate. The same   
  
bitter, congealing hate that my mother had harbored before she killed Rafaela. What I didn't understand was why Bella still   
  
hadn't killed me.  
  
I opened the book, found the page where I had left off, Walt Whitman. Oh captain, my captain, fallen cold and dead.  
  
The Emerald City was a seedy bar tucked away in a shady intersection in Hollywood, a shady, deplicated old niche with a   
  
yellow flagged staircase that led to a door decorated entirely in green. The walls were paneled with bits of broken green   
  
glass. The chairs and tables a cracked steady black. I had run into one day when I was 12, on a night when my parents had a   
  
vicious fight and I had run into the myriad of streets to escape the biting lashes. Afterwards on nights when my mother was   
  
out at her mahjong games or alone in the house with her witch brewing spite, or when Rafaela still hadn't come back from her   
  
auditions, I would to go down there with a pen and my notebook, where I sat in a corner booth and wrote amid hardcore and   
  
rock, smoke and leather clad men and women aloof and distant as statues. It was also where I had tried my first puff of hash,   
  
my first square of acid, gotten drunk so badly I ended up puking with a hangover like a credit debt. After I was unplugged I   
  
learned it was a favorite hang out for resistance members.  
  
There were two risks in bringing Rashel to this place, one, he could morph into an agent anytime. Two, if he didn't accept my   
  
offer he would walk away with full knowledge of a resistance drop point. This, along with a number of other reasons, made   
  
Bella happy to the point of high when I announced my plan. She choked on her mug of sports mix.  
  
"No way," she was laughing, "no way it's gonna work. That coppertop's gonna morph into an agent even before you offer him the   
  
pills."  
  
"Any coppertop could morph into an agent before you offer him the pills," snapped Sparks, "so shut the fuck up."  
  
"Bella has a point though," said Ghost, stroking his chin, "Nausicaa, are you sure that's the only place he can go?"  
  
I shrugged.   
  
"I'd be happy to entertain any other suggestions."  
  
Bella opened her mouth.  
  
"Bella, go upstairs and set course for broadcast depth. Sparks, you go with her."   
  
Ghost. Sparks and Bella got up, went out. That left Ghost and Niobe, me sitting crosslegged on the mess table, picking at a   
  
scratch on the chrome metal tabletop.  
  
Niobe spoke.  
  
"Nausicaa, you sure about this?"  
  
"I said I'd be happy to entertain any other suggestions."  
  
'None. Ghost?"  
  
"None here either."  
  
"Well then,"I swung my legs off the tabletop, headed for the door.  
  
"Nausicaa."  
  
I turned.  
  
"Yeah?"  
  
"You have a problem, you tell me, ok?"  
  
"Life's a bitch, Niobe," I shrugged again, "I've gotten over it."  
  
But it was a lie and I knew it. I could still feel my mother's slaps, still hear her voice as she railed at me. I still   
  
missed Rafaela, her tenderness, her care. I could still see my father's face when they arrested him, twisted and hurt. They   
  
were all there, fragments of a dream, hopelessly vivid. My mother. My father. Rafaela. How I wished she was the one who died,   
  
how I wished he could have stood up for himself, how I wished I had told her I loved her. And I hated it, hated them all, her   
  
pettiness, his weakness, hated the Matrix, her love that was never real, my anger crystallizing into hate, my guilt like a   
  
brand. 


	2. Rashel

Rashel was able to find The Emerald City, even though the location was hidden from the database and protected by firewalls   
  
made by the best Resistance operators. He found some sort of back way through. Some simple trick that reversed the program   
  
and threw the location at his feet. I would have simply hacked through, or die trying.  
  
Sparks informed me about it when I stepped out of the mess hall, and without waiting for Niobe or Ghost, I promptly strapped   
  
myself to the chair and made Sparks teleport me to the Emerald City. Goddamn if I was going to get there after Rashel. Bob   
  
the barman gave me a salute as I walked in.  
  
"No poems today?" he asked.  
  
I shook my head and allowed a half smile onto my face.  
  
"No, no poems," I said and took the grenadine spiked drink from him. It was a joke really. Bob knew I was unplugged. His real   
  
name wasn't Bob either, but some jackshit Greek/Latin/Roman alias that was as hard to pronounce as it was to spell. Most   
  
people simply called him Bob.  
  
"Your booth has been empty since the day you left."  
  
I gave a rueful smile.  
  
"Glad to know it's missed me."  
  
I slid into the booth and sipped my drink, watching the black garb of the Resistance fighters blacken even more against the   
  
eerie green glow of Emerald. I stared at them. How much clearer they were? How much smaller? When I was there before I   
  
thought everyone was at least 6 ft 5. I was a mere 5 ft 4. Now my RSI was 5ft 7, and I was taller than most resistance girls   
  
my age. Tempus fugit. Time flies. Or did time exist in the Matrix? Maybe it was just a loop. It was simple. I knew how to do   
  
it. That would explain the past lives, the afterlives, the deja vus.  
  
A tall gangly teen came in from the entrance. Medium shoulders, blue eyes, medium length black locks, skin pale as glacier   
  
milk. For a moment, my heart stopped, I was seeing Trinity, Rafaela. Then I stopped. Neither Trinity or Rafaela had a scar   
  
over their left eye. And Trinity's eyes were ice blue, while Rafaela had midnight blue. Neither of them had this clear,   
  
robin's egg shade. No, I shook myself. Rashel. This was Rashel.  
  
The kid wandered through the Emerald, clearly lost. He didn't seem to see me, blatantly staring at him in a corner booth over   
  
my grenadine and coke. I snorted. Damned coppertop. The first thing we'd have to teach him was observation. He'd need that to   
  
pick out Agents in a crowd.  
  
I waited until he passed my booth.  
  
"Hello Rashel." My IRS voice was smoother, silkier, unlike the gauzy quietness in my real world voice.  
  
He stopped, turned.  
  
"What the."  
  
"I've been waiting for you," a pause, "please, sit." He did, but he couldn't stop staring at me. I couldn't blame the poor   
  
guy. I'd deliberately asked Sparks to give me the outfit, black tube top, slut shorts. In addition I'd added eyeliner that   
  
brought out my eyes like an Abyssian cat's, and my nails were painted with black the same shade as my eyes. Black suited me,   
  
it clung to me and covered the scars on my back from amateur trips to the Matrix. Black also went with my eye bags. One would   
  
mistake them for make up, not the dead flesh it was.  
  
"How did you know my name?"  
  
I cocked an eyebrow.  
  
"What? William Watson the 3rd?"  
  
He visibly flushed.  
  
"It's cute you know." I raised my drink, though I didn't take my eyes off him.  
  
"Who are you?"  
  
A swallow of grenadine and coke.  
  
"I told you, I'm God."  
  
He snorted.  
  
"God's not a girl."  
  
Chauvinist bastard. Still, I couldn't lay a finger on him, not until the training sims.  
  
"Maybe he is, maybe he isn't. In any case, my name's Nausicaa."  
  
He smiled.  
  
"Nausicaa? You like anime?"  
  
I ignored his question.  
  
"Why are you here, Rashel?"  
  
"Huh?"  
  
"You heard the question."  
  
"You told me to follow the Yellow Brick Road."  
  
"So?"  
  
"So I came."   
  
"My god," I tipped my head back and laughed, "you come here just because some cyber punk bitch told you to? What if it was   
  
all a ploy? Huh? What if you came, and there would be the cops waiting for you."  
  
I winced inside. Damn, I was getting too close to home.  
  
He squirmed. He wasn't a guy who liked to be told he was so obviously dumb.  
  
"I had a feeling.the Matrix."  
  
"What is the Matrix?"  
  
"Yeah, yeah, that's it. What is the Matrix?"  
  
"The Matrix has you, Rashel. The Matrix has had you from the day you were born."  
  
"You said that. No need to elaborate."  
  
"I can't say more than it is safe. If you really want to know, you'll have to come with me."  
  
I would have wanted to say more, but I was getting impatient, as well as anxious. Had we been here too long? When would the   
  
agents pick us up?  
  
He hesitated, looked over his shoulder.  
  
"Is this some kind of joke?"  
  
"If you'll come with me, you'll find out whether it is or not."  
  
"That's not very comforting."  
  
"I am a very serious girl, Rashel. I don't ever joke."  
  
Rafaela had told me not to use girl so much. I was growing, she had said. I was becoming a woman. Only Rafaela believed I   
  
could. When she died, there was no one who believed, who told me I was growing. Girls needed mothers to help them become a   
  
woman. I had no mother.  
  
He seemed only mildly satisfied. The fact that he had stayed was because I was looking hot, not because he believed me. But I   
  
didn't care. No one believed in me. I didn't expect anyone to.  
  
"Anyway," I got up, leaving my empty glass on the table, "you either come, or you don't. Just remember. We may never see each   
  
other again." And you may never get your link to the Matrix.  
  
I was halfway to the entrance when I heard footsteps behind me.  
  
"Wait. I'll come."  
  
I continued walking as if I hadn't heard him.  
  
"Hey Kaesa," he caught my arm. I stiffened, and quickly twisted my arm out of the way.   
  
"A, its Nausicaa. B, do not touch me, ever again, or I'll have you castrated or in the very least severely maimed."  
  
He blushed again.  
  
"Sorry, somehow got into my head you were Kaesa," he paused, "but I'll come." I turned, beckoned him to the entrance.  
  
"Then come with me."  
  
I had Sparks download me a coat at the bar entrance. I ripped it off the peg and put it on, glad to feel the reassuring   
  
smoothness of a gun barrel hidden in the inside. I hadn't gone into the bar unarmed either. I had knives in my boots, my ass   
  
and the small of my back. Still, it felt better to have a gun. My security object I guess, like a woman's purse or a man's   
  
watch.  
  
Bella was waiting for us at the curb, leaning against the black limo. Even in the dark, Bella wore shades, square shades like   
  
an Agent's. I shivered.  
  
"So this is the coppertop?"  
  
I nodded.  
  
"The what?"  
  
I shrugged, motioned to Rashel.  
  
"Get in."  
  
In the car, Bella held a gun to Rashel's head, while I prodded him for bugs. I was scared. Debugging always wrought an   
  
unpleasant twist in my stomach. I was remembering my own. Rashel was bug free, thank God.  
  
We reached the old warehouse in record time. Niobe took Rashel up for her speech, while I followed Ghost, Bella and Lock to   
  
the back room for Rashel's unplugging preparation.  
  
"So what's going to come alive this time?" asked Lock.  
  
"The wall."  
  
"The wall?" I asked as I peeled off a piece of blistering paint. Jesus, that was the ultimate cliché.  
  
"We didn't have time to think of anything else."  
  
I rolled my eyes.  
  
"It's not poh-eh-tick enough for her," snickered Bella. I gave her a long, hard stare, before crumbling the digital paint   
  
into ash in my hands. Hate her, love her, or not care and let the insults roll off me like water. I chose the latter.  
  
"Anyway," said Lock, breaking the silence and seating himself at the computer, "let's get online." Ghost and Bella went to   
  
their respective positions, and I busied myself with Rashel's electrodes and vital monitors. Once I had done all I thought I   
  
could, I stood and waited, my heart pounding and myself getting uptight again.  
  
"Niobe's taking a long time," I whispered, my voice almost like my real world quietness, tapping my nails against my   
  
cheekbone.  
  
"Aw, Nausea's scared." Bella pulled puppy eyes, "maybe we should gwive pwoor widdle Nausea a widdle break?"  
  
Ghost shot her a look.  
  
"Niobe always takes that much time with new recruits," he said, "don't worry."   
  
We waited a few more minutes, before Niobe strode in, followed by Rashel.  
  
"Lock, are we online?"  
  
It sounded too much like my own unplugging. She might have said Apoc.  
  
"Almost." I shook by head. Lock, Lock, not Apoc. I was on the Logos now, not the Nebechunezzar.  
  
Niobe motioned for Rashel to sit in the chair. He did, and I began strapping the electrodes onto him.  
  
"Can I go back?"  
  
I stuck an electrode on his chest, felt him shivering.  
  
"I thought Niobe told you that."  
  
"I know, but I wanted to ask you."  
  
He was asking me? Who'd the fuck want to ask me? Didn't he ever consider the possibility that I'd give him the wrong answer,   
  
just to see him pop in the real world? Didn't he know that lying was second nature to me? From all the time I'd spent hiding   
  
from Bella, hiding from my feelings. Soldiers weren't saints.  
  
"Guess not." I shrugged. It was becoming a habit. Someday death would come to my door and I'd shrug off my life. Habit. Just   
  
habit.  
  
"That's not very comforting."  
  
"I never meant to be." I stuck the last electrode on him and I took my place behind the vitals console.  
  
I watched as the wall smoothed over, trying not to sneer at the cliché. Instead, I tried to remember my own unplugging.   
  
Morpheus at the console, Trinity monitoring my vitals. Perhaps we had stood here, in the same room. Perhaps not, all   
  
unplugging rooms were the same. Switch and Apoc, even Cypher. I missed them, missed them all. Then the white paint surged,   
  
Rashel's screams turned into blow up digital gratings. Alice tumbling down the Rabbit Hole. Dorothy spinning in the tornado.   
  
Toto in the trap door. Kansas gone. 


	3. Your Charge

After Rashel disappeared, we hurried to the hardline, exiting just as Rashel had just been thrown down the sewer. Lock   
  
hurried to the cockpit, while I ran to the hatch with the others, held on as the ship lurched and rolled. It seemed an   
  
eternity before it opened, and a claw reached down to pick up a naked, bedraggled form. I willed myself not to, but my eyes   
  
flicked southwards. Definitely not 5 inches, before Niobe wrapped him in a blanket and whisked him away. Sparks docked the   
  
ship, and the lurching stopped.  
  
Later, the rest of us were in the Mess Hall. Sparks was washing the dishes. I had offered to help with the dishes, but   
  
Sparks had told me to tired since I had to be "exhausted from my first recruiting mission." He was right, and before I could   
  
protest I promptly walked into the edge of the table, banging my knee hard. Sparks smirked, told me to sit. So I sat on the   
  
edge of the bench, picking at my hair elastics while Lock and Bella drank sports mix and played chess in the flickering light   
  
of the dying lamp. It was a beautiful set, ebony black and ivory white, knights with combed manes, kings with the crosses   
  
painted gold. It was antique, one of the many rarities Locke gave Niobe on Zion leave, among others. Perfume, hairties,   
  
books, now this chess set. They were meant for her, and only her. But Niobe never wore makeup, used barrettes instead of   
  
ties, barely had time to read, and chess could only be played with two. So Bella got hold of the makeup. I got the hairties.   
  
And the books and chess set placed in the mess hall for free time fun. I liked chess, the clarity of the rules, the   
  
crispness of the strategies. It was a welcome break from the pandemonium we lived in, though tonight I was too tired to   
  
play.  
  
"Hah!" cried Bella, "check."  
  
Lock smiled, moved his bishop.   
  
"Never announce check with vanity."  
  
Bella grinned.  
  
"Right, guess you win." She wasn't always such a bitch. Just when she was talking to or about me. Other than that, she was   
  
actually alright, a good soldier, dilligent worker. Her humor wasn't all that bad either.  
  
"Good job with the recruitment," said Sparks as he sat down, the dishes dried and stacked neatly in the cabinet.  
  
I was too tired even to shrug, just nodded, rubbed my temples before letting my head drop onto my arms.  
  
"Tired huh?"  
  
"Mmm…" I just might fall asleep in the mess hall.  
  
The door creaked open.  
  
"Nausicaa?"  
  
I jerked up. Niobe.  
  
"I want you to come with me."  
  
"Now?" Sparks.  
  
"Yes, now."  
  
I got up, picked my elastics off the table, followed Niobe down the hall.  
  
"What?"  
  
"Rashel. He's your charge. I'm going to teach you to be reponsible for him."  
  
"So I have to help rebuild him, train him, all that jazz."  
  
She smiled crookedly.  
  
"That'd be right."  
  
I flipped my hair into a pony tail, hooked my bangs behind my ears, before following Niobe up the ladder. Then down a   
  
walkway before reaching a door, slightly bigger than the rest of the doors. But still a door.  
  
The medbay was cold and well lit, a stark contrast from the mess hall. I had to blink several times before anything came   
  
into focus. Rashel lay in the middle, on a surgical table encased in perspex. He reminded me of the time I went to the   
  
morgue to identify the corpse of Rafaela. They had put ger in a cabinet, covered her with a sheet. I still remember the tag   
  
on her toe. 14253. 14, the unluckiest number in Chinese superstition. 4 sounded like death. And 10 sounded like sure.   
  
Fourteen meant sure death.  
  
"Ghost, Nausicaa will be your assistant in this. Teach her. I expect her to at least know how to rebuild muscles by next   
  
week."  
  
I caught on quicker than I thought I would. The sterilizers and the gauze, the scalpels, the miasma of needles not too unlike   
  
that of acunpuncture. I worked day and night with Ghost, from lights on to lights out, and then some more, when the ship lay   
  
silent as a tomb and we had to worked by the light of emergency flourescent tubes. For the most part, Rashel lay in his   
  
plastic coffin, I learned to get used to the sight of his member.   
  
By the end of three weeks, I had learned to rebuild most of external muscles, and was rebuilding Rashel's arms while Ghost   
  
did the more delicate procedure of his eyes.  
  
"Ghost?" I asked one night when we were both working on his chest.  
  
"Hmm?"  
  
"How long have you done this?"  
  
"Long enough. I started off a medic's assistant. Then Niobe got the Logos and I joined."  
  
"I see," a pause, "how many mes have you trained?"  
  
"You? None. Medic assistants. Quite a few. Not on the Logos. Mostly back in Zion. I help out at the Academy."  
  
"How are they like?"  
  
"Who?"  
  
"The medics you train."  
  
"Most of them are freeborns. Helf come because they need a job and the academy is free. The other half come because of   
  
promises. Dead brothers, cousins, fathers. A very slim proportion because they want to."  
  
I didn't have to ask why. How could any freeborn stand to look at us, the Matrix born, the illusioned. We were there to   
  
remind them of the history of our kind. why they couldn't come out of hiding, why they couldn't breathe, why the sky was not   
  
sky but a black burned mass. Our cruelty. Our callousness. How could anyone stand to be reminded day and night of their   
  
sin?   
  
"Have you ever trained a Matrix born?"  
  
"No. Never had to."  
  
"Why do you have to now?"  
  
"Because Niobe told me to."  
  
Or was it because the living were so unwilling to help others live that they'd have to find the dead to do so?   
  
At this point, Rashel's eyes flickered open.  
  
"Kaesa?" He whispered. I rolled my eyes.  
  
"Nausicaa." I saw the hint of a smile on Ghost's lips, shot him a look.  
  
"Where am I?"  
  
"Shh," the gentleness in my voice surprised me. For a second I thought I heard Rafaela. I touched my hand to his cheek, knew   
  
it would feel cool, "go to sleep Rashel. There's plenty of time for that."  
  
For a long white, I practically lived in the med lab, only tearing myself away to take a quick sip of water (alcohol was noy   
  
permitted for medics) and a bowl of slop. Core work was left to Bella and Lock, both of them more than thrilled to have the   
  
chess set and sports mix all to themselves. I hadn't talked to Trinity in weeks. And I was afraid I'd forget how to decode   
  
the Matrix. The med lab chair seemed to be the only thing I had ever slept in. Poetry was nonexistant.  
  
Finally, Ghost declared Rashel fit enough to be taken from his case and moved to his own room. Sparks helped Ghost in this.   
  
I was given the day off, and slinked gratefully to my room, read more poetry and attempted to write. But my head pounded and   
  
my hands were shaking from the effort to stop them for the past three weeks, and in the end I gave up, curled in my bed,   
  
boots on, and fell asleep. I was too tired to dream.  
  
I was woken by pounding on my door. I groaned, took off my shoe.  
  
"Go away!" I yelled. I threw my shoe at the door.  
  
"Nausicaa!" called Sparks.  
  
"Nausicaa. Nausea...leave me the fuck alone." I pulled the threadbare blanket over my head.  
  
The pounding only grew louder. I threw my other shoe at it, but it didn't die down. Jesus. I kicked the blanket off me,   
  
groaned and half crawled my what to the door.  
  
"What?" I hissed, when I opened it. Sparks better have a good excuse for waking me up. At lights out too.  
  
"Thank God you're up," Sparks gestured down the hallway, "its Rashel. Dude, he won't stay still."  
  
"And what makes you think I can make him?"  
  
"He wants you."  
  
As if on cue, a scream erupted from down the hall. Kaesa, Nausicaa, Rafaela.  
  
"He's delirious right? Tell Bella or Niobe to pretend to be me and let me sleep."  
  
Sparks lips dipped into a grin.  
  
"Niobe says he's your call. If he wants you, all the better."  
  
Shit, for a second I wished I hadn't found him. If Bella knew how I was feeling, she wouldn't be jealous of me.  
  
"Fine. Fine," I grunted, "wait a sec."  
  
I closed the door, dug through my drawer and dug out my thickest sweater. I threw it on, before reaching up and running my   
  
fingers through my sleep tangled hair. Fuck the elastics. I needed all the heat I could get.   
  
I followed Sparks to the end of the hallway, into the end room with the sloped roof and pipes laced across one wall. Rashel   
  
was tossing and clawing.  
  
"Kaesa!" he was screaming, over and over. Every now and then he choked on his own spit. His blanket was stained with vomit.   
  
Ghost could barely hold him down, much less stick the IV into him. When he saw me, he nodded.   
  
I knelt down, laid my hand on his forehead, his cheek, putting to work all I had learned from Rafaela. How she would touch   
  
her hand to my face when I was sick. How she would wrap me in sheets dipped with cloves and lavender. How everything would   
  
always be cool.  
  
"Rashel..." I whispered, stroking his face. Had I been like this when I was unplugged, crying, screaming, tearing at my   
  
plugs, my IV? Maybe. I'd have to ask Trinity the next time I was online. I thought of the nights I was out, when sleeping   
  
felt like waking and waking like sleeping. Not too different from Rashel.   
  
I leaned forward to whisper in his ear, at the same time gesturing for a new blanket.  
  
"I know you're scared. I was too. But listen to me. You'll be alright. Hear me? You'll be alright..." my voice trailed   
  
off. Ghost smiled. The IV needle slipped in.   
  
"And its Nausicaa, stupid," I sat back against the wall, cold even through my layers. It was going to be a long night.  
  
"Kaesa," he whispered, calming, "Kaesa..." 


End file.
